Reviews for Lagrange five

The average rating for Lagrange five based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-04-10 00:00:00 Chet Hurey My first impression of Mack Reynolds, based on his Utopian Sci-Fi novel Lagrange Five, is that he is a man who cares deeply about equality -- economic equality, racial equality and gender equality. But knowing that doesn't make Lagrange Five any less difficult to read. For all his love of equality, Reynold's story is packed full of uncomfortable language and conventional, '70s era gender and race roles (most of which, sadly, continue into our time). The trouble is that the excellent points Reynolds makes (and there are many) are forced to contend with material that contemporary audiences have been trained to disdain. For instance, the main female character in Lagrange Five, Susie Hawkins, is really just a classic girl-Friday in a space noir that intentionally channels Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler (which, paradoxically, is one of the most entertaining aspects of Lagrange Five -- the noirishness that is), while Whip Ford, the only significant, non-villainous character of colour, looks exactly like Harry Belafonte and becomes the Tubbs to the hero's Crockett. It doesn't matter at all that Susie Hawkins is a Doctor. She's still the aide to the great man, Professor George R. Casey, whose disappearance kicks off the noirish mystery, and most of her time in the novel is spent as love interest for our hero -- Rex Bader. But things are much worse for Whip Ford. Not only does he spend most of the novel slagging off every "Whitey" he sees and being described as "the Black" (here's an example: "The Black's eyes were cold, cold now."), but he actually asks Bader to become "an honorary nigger" so that Bader can join the population of his new, segregated space island -- "The Promised Land." Yep...Reynolds employs language and social roles that society has come to despise over the last thirty years, but he really is employing these things in a way that, at the time, was progressive. One imagines that his books would be very different today and would adhere to our standards and what we now consider forward thinking. And I think there is every possibility that Reynolds villains -- oil rich Arabs who are poisoning the Lagrange water supply -- would be someone else because beneath all the unintentional discomfort, Reynolds wants a world without prejudice or bigotry. So he gives us a woman doctor in charge of her own sexuality; he gives us a righteously angry black man (and he's careful to let us know that his anger is righteous) who is working to overcome his own racism; he gives us powerful white men and not so powerful white men who are dedicated to equality and project color and gender blindness in all their dealings. Yet there is always that off-putting language to pull us away from the ideals Reynolds is trying to express. I found Lagrange Five on China Miéville's list of Fifty Fantasy & Science Fiction Works That Socialists Should Read, and it's easy to see why Miéville tossed this on the list. Beyond Reynolds love of equality is a story of working neo-Syndicalism struggling to maintain its hold in the face of mankind's lust for power over mankind. And its gigantic space station society is really an orbital city that just has to be up Miéville's urban loving alley. It's definitely worth a read, even if it isn't anywhere near the best book on Miéville's list. I kind of wish I'd been able to enjoy it more, actually, but my upbringing is too potent.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-08-20 00:00:00 William Rowan The concept is truly, honestly interesting, but the 1970s veil of racism and sexism was difficult to peek out from behind and see the vision of the book Reynolds was actually trying to write. First of all the only female character, Susie Hawkins, is a doctor, but I'd forgotten that by the middle of the book because it's only mentioned maybe 2 times and also because she is a secretary. A damn secretary. I had to check to make sure this book wasn't written in the 1940s, which would have made more sense. There is also one black character in the story, Whip Ford, and you absolutely know he is black, because Reynolds spends the entire book referring to him as "the Black." Ford also hates white people and calls them all "whitey" because he resents the subjugation that his race suffered for centuries, but as both Reynolds and the main character point out, racism doesn't exist anymore and it's all in black people's heads. I hereby nominate Mack Reynolds for the honor of the Nobel Peace Prize for tremendous service to his fellow man in completely ridding the world of racism. Ford's solution to the inequality is to segregate the black race from the rest of the world, thereby creating their own space colony called the Promised Land Society. At the end of the book, this is supposed to be treated as a viable solution and a happy ending. See? Black people and white people don't hate each other- we can just never ever get along! The weirdest part was digesting the book's theme of the myth of racism, all while it wallows in Reynolds' obvious hate or at least distrust of "the Arabs." There are no good Middle Easterners in this book. They are the schemers, the crooked politicians, the users of crude violence. Both Reynolds and the main character refer to them frequently as oily, snake-like and beak-nosed. They are wily enough to conspire to overthrow a government, but they'll beg for mercy when they're thwarted because ultimately, they are cowards. Even if I attempted to take Reynolds' antiracism theme seriously, I can't. He destroys his own point more eloquently than I ever could. Also the main story of the book involves the idea that modern technology and medicine allow everyone to thrive, not only the most physically and intellectually fit and that is...a bad thing? No more are the days when a kid with a peanut allergy wouldn't make it past toddlerhood. Those damn epipens are everywhere, spitting in the face of our holy and devout Charles Darwin! So the solution and ultimate moral of the book is to separate all of societies best specimens (IQ over 130, peak physical and mental condition,..) on a utopian space colony and leave all the rest with undesirable traits to rot on a decaying earth. Like I know this book was written almost 50 years ago but I feel like the message still shouldn't be...YAY EUGENICS! And the very last pages of the book are wasted building up that idea so...yay eugenics..? I guess? I don't know it's a weird book.